Famous Hacks: Article #1 - Cap'n Crunch

In 1972 John Draper (a.k.a. Captain Crunch) discovered that he could use a toy found in a Cap'n Crunch cereal box to make long distance phone calls for free.

With the help of a pitch perfect blind friend, Joe Egressia, John discovered that a giveaway toy whistle found in Cap'n Crunch cereal emitted a 2600 Hz pitch (if one the holes was plugged shut). When the whistle was blown into a phone receiver, this pitch effectively allowed John to tap into and take control of AT&Ts phone system.

Draper and other notables from that era (e.g. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs) devised "blue boxes" that emitted multi-frequency tones that when played in the right combinations allowed them to, amongst other things, set up free nationwide conference calls with other hackers, and make free long distance phone calls.

Reportedly, Steve Wozniak used a blue box to call the Pope in Rome while pretending to be Henry Kissinger complete with a fake German accent…. The Pope was sleeping.

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